Blogging Questions & Answers 25

By Daniel Scocco - 5 minute read

This Friday’s Blogging Questions & Answers are live. If you want to ask something, just leave a comment below. If you asked already but I have not answered yet, hold tight! We have a small backlog of questions, but soon I will get to yours.

I really like this portion of your blog, as readers like me are really learning a lot. I already asked you once and your answers satisfied me.

Meanwhile, your reply to G&D confirms to me that I am on the right path. I am working so hard to re-direct most of my posts on my blogspot blogs to my WP paid hosting blog.

However, two simple questions suddenly came into my mind. Why would Google suddenly remove a blogspot blog from the Internet if Google is earning from it? Will there be a chance that a blogspot user be sent a warning first so he can correct the mistake?

I am not that experienced with Google’s policies on the Blogger service, but I heard a couple of weird stories in the past. For example, there was one guy whose blogspot blog got hacked and inserted malicious code into it, and Google deleted it according to the guy. I am not saying Google is evil because it did that, perhaps it is mentioned on their Terms of Service so they have the right to, but if that guy was hosting his blog himself all he would need to do was to fix the hack or restore his back up.

Also, for a company that makes billions of dollars yearly, do you think they need to think twice before shutting down a blogspot blog that is making some pocket change via AdSense?

As for warnings, I am not sure if they send one or not. In the case of a violation of their terms of service, however, I highly doubt they would warn before shutting it down.

What I’m interested about is why the Stumbleupon traffic comes in huge amounts for some day and then almost stops?

The pattern I notice with Stumble is that it has a peak day, and then it gradually decreases over time. For example, it might send you 10,000 visitors on the first day (this is for a really popular story by the way), then 6,000 on the next day, then 3,000, 1,500, 500, and then really small numbers.

This is natural on any social bookmarking site, because you have a constant inflow of news and stories, so the older ones got make room for the newer. If you were able to sustain the peak traffic, it would mean that people would keep visiting the same stories over and over.

That being said, Stumble is still one of the most long term friendly social bookmarking sites. Depending on the popularity of your story and on its stickiness, you might see traffic coming even 2 or 3 months after the peak day. The same is not true with other social bookmarking site, especially with Digg and Reddit, where you have one big day and nothing else after.

If you launched a new blog tomorrow, how would you go about getting readers in the first two weeks?

Well I launched TechCult a while ago, and I followed a non traditional way for promoting it. The only “expected” thing I did was to plug it on this blog, recommending my current readers to go there and check it out.

After that, I just kept pushing the content(I didn’t write it myself though), and promoting it on social media once in a while (when some big and structured posts would be published).

That was all I did, and it proves the old saying that content is king.

In October we broke 400,000 page views (tracked by a third party ad network).

Part of this strategy came from the fact that I didn’t really the time to carry out other promotional activities though, and sometimes they are still valid.

They include: leaving comments on other blogs, guest articles, promoting your site on online forums, asking friends to plug your new blog, using Twitter and so on.

If you have time, give a shot at all of them and see which will bring more (loyal) visitors.

When it comes to social media wordpress plugins like ’share this!’ and Socialable, which ones work the best?

Or which one would you pick between the two above and why? And how much traffic do you think it generates?

I think most of those plugins work pretty much on the same way. That is, there is no best one, just the one that suits your blog or preferences better.

Out of the two you mentioned, I prefer the ShareThis plugin, because it gives the user the possibility to bookmark the post on a wide range of services, and it does that with a drop-down box, without adding too much clutter to your site.

As for the traffic, I don’t think such plugins and social bookmarking badges and buttons have a tangible impact on a blog’s traffic. If digg users or delicious users want to bookmark your stuff, they will no matter what. The plugins and icons might work as a recall to your visitors, but it all boils down to the quality of the content.

In order words, if your content is outstanding, people will share it on social media with or without those plugins. If you content is average, on other other hand, people will not bookmark it even if you put huge social icons in their faces.

I think Google Analytics is best, how i can use this on my wordpress blog?

or is there any other better tracker?

I just use the trackers that come with cPanel (Webalizer and AWStats). I know they overestimate the numbers of page views largely, but I just use them to see the overall trend, most popular pages and the referring websites.

When I need to measure the real number of pages views I just put an AdSense unit on my site.

Google Analytics is definitely one of the best analytics software out there, and when I need detailed data like bounce rate I put the script on my sites. Throughout the year, however, I don’t use it because it ads an extra thing to be loaded when people visit my sites (yes, I am paranoid when it comes to load time speeds).

On the Google analytics website they have all the instructions you need to create your account and to add the script to your site.

To make my question compatible to your guidelines i have rephrased it:

5 Things You Love and Hate About My Blog 🙂

Hope this one gets accepted!

Thanks!

The essence of what you are asking is still the same, you want a free review of your blog. Sorry but I am not doing those on the Q&A column, else everyone would start asking one, and it would become boring for the readers.

I hope you understand.

6. Team Ray asks:

are you a programmer ?

i ask this because i notice you release themes and plugins

if so what are some great resources for theme development?

No I am not a programmer. I know the basics of HTML, CSS and PHP, but that is how far I go.

Someday when I have some free time I do wish to learn coding though.

As for my themes and plugins, they are all done by friends, designers and coders that work with me.

I don’t have any resources on top of my head that teach you how to develop a WordPress theme, but if you take a look on Google I am sure there are tons of articles about that around.

7. Rich asks:

Is it worth my while to pay to get into the Yahoo! Directory? I’ve got a successful site that already earns me six figures, so I can afford it. But will it really help any?

If you website is already earning six figures, I don’t think it would be worth for you to pay for the Yahoo! Directory. Usually people pay for it when they are trying to boost their search rankings a bit, and even them the effect is not guaranteed and sometimes not tangible.

Hi Daniel,
Few days back I came across a pay per click search engine.. I wanted to know more so i went thru other sites and got list of such search engines. the price of the advertisement seemed cheaper than Google and Yahoo ( of course) but I am not sure if they are effective. I wonder if people actually visit these sites just to check on some pay per click advertisements.. Could you please let me know how these things work??

If you want to play with PPC on search engines, I would stick with Google, at most Yahoo!. Sure, there might be sites there with cheaper prices, but that is because there aren’t many competitors bidding for keywords on those sites, and the overall amount and quality of traffic that you can get is pretty lower.

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27 Responses to “Blogging Questions & Answers 25”

depremon October 16, 2009 7:29 pm

Again, thanks for taking time to answer my question, Daniel. Come to think of it, youâ€™re right that the big G will not hesitate to delete a single blogspot blog. They have tons of them, anyway. Now, I am glad I am using my own domain.

While I also find the other Q & A really valuable, I would like to ask another if you donâ€™t mind. How would you differentiate the users of SU and Digg? I ask this because SU has been my top referral site in terms of traffic, although I donâ€™t send any of my posts there. I sometimes send my posts to Digg, and I know it is a sin. However, I also submit other bloggersâ€™ posts.

Can I conclude that Digg users prefer news posts, which is not my blog topic? Or basically, Digg users hate me because I submit my posts.

I will be patiently waiting for your answer.

medyumon July 18, 2009 7:18 am

Hi Daniel, I stumbled across your website by accident and I am glad I did. I given up on traditional employment and I am struggling to make a full time living online. I love to hear some comments from you on what I can do to improve my daily traffic or any other improvements for my blog. Thanks Daniel for any help you can provide.

Ron Mertenson November 19, 2008 6:07 am

Hi guys.

I have a question, I think it might be interesting for others as well.

I have several sites. They are *somewhat* related – they are all related to technology, but different technology. (like one is cars, the other is washing machines, let’s say – related, but not really).

I have added a footer on each site with links to the others on my network. Is that wise? Will I get punished by google who might consider this a link exchange?

Thanks!

Ron

Pink Inkon November 18, 2008 3:19 am

Thanks Arun 🙂

SEO Geniuson November 15, 2008 11:02 am

Another question:

Why does my RSS feed sometimes not take me to my feedburner feed instead it will come up with “add this bookmark”?
Will this affect the amount of RSSsubscribers I receive or are they converted in to subscribers?

Thanks

Farrhadon November 15, 2008 8:03 am

In addition to my previous comment:

Q) Good CPM networks that i could use.

Farrhadon November 15, 2008 3:26 am

I finally got it :p
The thing is i am trying my best to improve my blog 🙂
And its not that i am looking for a free review. I have had paid reviews on 3 blogs and got one from Rajaie too, but excepting Rajaie’s, the others all turned out to be of no great help. 🙁

Q)I have noticed that on almost all your posts you have dozens of comments coming in. How do you do this? I get an average of 11 comments (but most of them are from my friends)

Angel Cualaon November 15, 2008 2:20 am

Again, thanks for taking time to answer my question, Daniel. Come to think of it, you’re right that the big G will not hesitate to delete a single blogspot blog. They have tons of them, anyway. Now, I am glad I am using my own domain.

While I also find the other Q & A really valuable, I would like to ask another if you don’t mind. How would you differentiate the users of SU and Digg? I ask this because SU has been my top referral site in terms of traffic, although I don’t send any of my posts there. I sometimes send my posts to Digg, and I know it is a sin. However, I also submit other bloggers’ posts.

Can I conclude that Digg users prefer news posts, which is not my blog topic? Or basically, Digg users hate me because I submit my posts.

I will be patiently waiting for your answer.

Thanks, really!

teamrayon November 15, 2008 1:32 am

thanks for answering my question it was so long ago i thought you forgot about it .

Do you think that leaving comments is still a good way to get visitors? When I launched my first blogs, all I had to do to get comments and subscribers during the first couple of weeks was visit other blogs and leave interesting comments.

I’m trying that with a blog I’ve launched recently and I’m seeing a few subscribers but people aren’t reciprocating comments. Since it worked well with my other blogs, I have a feeling it’s not the writing or my style. Is comment reciprocation a thing of the past?

Alex Fraiseron November 14, 2008 6:46 pm

I like reading these Q&A’s, and now I have a question for you Dan:

I have a blog with what I and a few other people (based on reviews) think is unique content in a niche that has barely been touched. My question is how would I go about promoting the blog? I have read countless articles telling me to go and advertise on blogs, forums, etc. in the niche, but as I had said before, there are no other sites in my niche that I can find. On top of all that, there is just nothing SEO wise I can think of to do, or any keywords to really rank good for.

I have been told to use Social bookmarking, but I have not gotten very good results. I have also been told to get a press release written too, but I am not even sure how to get one! Any insight would be much appreciated!

Money Making Ideas ~ Suzanneon November 14, 2008 6:12 pm

I really do enjoy the question and answers too … and now that I’m getting some subscribers … I can finally start one too. *SmiLes* Suzanne

Arun Basil Lalon November 14, 2008 3:54 pm

Sorry daniel for messing up.
pls delete the 8th comment. I placed some code and the editor executed it.

Well, I got one question.

I am a blogger at the above blog and I earn about $10 per month from adsense. I know that cofee money, but do you think that placing ads are distracting readers..? Will any reader cease to comeback because of the ads..?

Hi Daniel, I stumbled across your website by accident and I am glad I did. I given up on traditional employment and I am struggling to make a full time living online. I love to hear some comments from you on what I can do to improve my daily traffic or any other improvements for my blog. Thanks Daniel for any help you can provide.

Hucky

Pink Inkon November 14, 2008 2:10 pm

Daniel, do you know of a Blogger widget that can be inserted at the bottom of each post inviting readers to subscribe via RSS or email (other than cutting and pasting the sentence each time)?

WordPress seems to have a lot more goodies, but I am not about to switch over…yet. 🙂

Also, at some point in your early blogging career, did you comment on every comment, and at what point did you answer just ones that you thought needed to be answered?? And did your readers care?

Thanks.

Medical Transcriptioniston November 14, 2008 12:08 pm

Great set of questions and answers.

Here is the one for you this weekend:

I have noticed a trend in people replying/commenting through the email ID that you use for your Feedburner feed delivery. Being that the case, people should do that with your email newsletter too! Even I felt sort of commenting on your first newsletter but kept myself back knowing it would be humanly impossible if all of your newsletter subscribers start replying to your newsletters. Already being busy jumping between blogs, isn’t that a sort of dragging yourself with such mails? How are you going to tackle it, especially when your newsletter comes from your personal mail ID? Isn’t it a good idea opening up a separate forum for comments/discussions on your newsletter that would also increase your traffic and page views and lessen your burden of replying such mails?

@Matej, yeah I need to find some time to give more attention to Daily Bits.

SATISH – Technotip.orgon November 14, 2008 11:56 am

Informative Q&A.
This weeks question:
why have you removed trackback links from your blog?
There would be no problem with spamy sites linking to you, as you can always moderat the linkbacks.

Matejon November 14, 2008 11:53 am

It’s maybe just me but I find TechCult much more interesting than DailyBits and you often cover the same topics on both sites, why that’s? What are your plain with DailyBits, that’s such a great domain name.

Ryan McLeanon November 14, 2008 11:48 am

I love question and answers and I am about to answer my readers questions on my blog. This is a great lot of questions an answers. I missed out on asking a question but I look forward to asking a question next time.

SEO Geniuson November 14, 2008 11:43 am

Another excellent series of Q&A. I have a question now too, I have heard you in the past saying that you invest in to domain names.

What I am wondering is;

Do you register them yourself or purchase of other people?

If you purchase them yourself how do you find a domain name that you think is investable?

What makes you purchase a domain name either if its unregistered or registered?